Christmas Party

We always enjoy celebrating the Christmas season with friends...and lots of candy.  We once again hosted a party with miniature gingerbread houses, warm drinks, and lots of laughter.  This year's party was a mix of old and new friends.  We only invited homeschoolers this year since we had it at the same time as the public school "class parties".  The boys definitely seemed to enjoy this "class party" much more than the classroom ones in years past.  Merry Christmas!

Little CC Encouragement

Classical Conversations has been such a blessing.  I cannot believe how much we have all learned!  An encouraging highlight was when E was able to win a prize at Dell for singing her Presidents song.  We had gone to a Dell Christmas lunch with Dad.  At the very end, the kids were invited to sing a song to compete for a prize.  E volunteered without hesitating.  She stood up in front of a room of about 150 employees and proceeded to confidently sing through the 44 Presidents.  Well, she brought the house down!  No one could believe their eyes or ears.  She was offered a job at Dell and awarded $100.  What an encouraging day!  I'm pretty sure it is one of Dad's top 5 proudest moments as all day long people came up to him commenting how amazing his daughter is.

Thank you CC!  Wish I had a picture of that sweet girl's performance.

Charity Bake Sale

Our favorite thing we did this first semester was hold a bake sale to raise money for Samaritan's Purse Horn of Africa Famine Relief Fund.  The kids worked hard baking, marketing, and selling.  In the end, they raised $148 to help families in Africa, and they had a wonderful experience learning about entrepreneurership and world missions.  Most importantly, though, we saw God work.  After praying for Him to bless our efforts, we witnessed Him doing just that.  It rained all day the day of our bakesale, except during the two hours that we were selling.  The people who made purchases were extremely generous in their donations.  We were able to sell more than we thought possible and we give all glory to God.

Christmas Party and more

A loves to decorate and be with friends so a party is one of her favorite things.  She began planning and inviting friends to her Christmas Party before I had even caught wind of it.  Looks like we will have many Christmas and other parties in our future.  

Waiting for the guests to arrive.

Edible Christmas Tree from Pinterest

Let the sugar high of little ones begin!

 

I hope this will be a yearly tradition!

A has been busy during our school time working on reading, writing and math skills.  One thing we have worked on weekly is new site words. This was another pinterest idea....mystery site words.  She had fun with this even though you could still kind of see the words before she painted over them.

A loves to write and doesn't think of it as school.  Whether she's writing a card to a friend or writing on the chalkboard she is learning and growing in her writing skills.  She'll ask for help on spelling when needed but has mastered certain phrases and words.

A has a love of Art.  This is one of my favorite pictures from our beach trip in November.  Bed head, p.j.'s still on, painting by the ocean with Sugar...

We are as a family walking down this homeschool road together.  I don't know how many years it will last, but we are thankful for the moments that it does.  Will is busy playing and discovering and enjoying life.  He has begun to join us more for our morning time together and I am hoping to find more ways of working with him beginning in January.  He is growing so quickly and I love seeing his personality unfold.

Starting in January we have the privilege of beginning Classical Conversations.  I am really looking forward to all that we will learn as a family.

So Much Learning...So Little Blogging

Hey Homeschool Sister...it's been a while.  :)

We just finished our first semester of Classical Conversations.  I cannot believe how much the kids learned in 12 classes.  They know all their states and capitals, the US Presidents in order, American history up to the Civil War, the major organs of the human body, history timeline up to the Rennaissance, John 1:1-7 in English and Latin, regular & irregular verb tenses, and can skip count each number up to 15.  I am so thankful for this program.  It has been awesome!

I'll show a few other things we've been up to in pictures.

Drawing lessons-trying to learn scale & perspective:

E's

T's (the bear has entered a campsite & is scaring all the people...possibly even eating them)



G's (sorry my picture is upside-down)

Teachers



E has been studying the value of money.  T has been a huge help in teaching her about coins.  They play store with her piggy bank & T teaches her how to count her money. E also studied this sheet:



We made art for our kitchen:

It spells EAT

We had two weeks of yucky sicknesses that went through the family, but this was a sweet moment in the midst of it.  E was sick & she and I had slept together.  When we woke up, this sweetness was next to the bed:

We have treasured having family devotions together in the mornings.  We read out of the Jesus Storybook Bible and use our Charlotte Mason Scripture Memory System.  We also pray together & try to remember others in need.

We have enjoyed several crazy fun ideas with friends, like this walk-in bubble:

I LOVE this picture!

Lego Lab

The theme was holiday scene & the boys chose to depict Washington crossing the Delaware on Christmas Eve...what can I say? They love history!

Indoor Snowball Fight.  Sweet friend let us do this messy & crazy fun greatness at her house.  She is brave!

The boys started pelting me

We made a model of blood which helped us understand the composition of blood.  Corn syrup (1 cup) for plasma, 1 c red hots for red blood cells, 5 lima beans for white blood cells, and 1 T lentils for platelets.  The best part was eating the red hots, of course.

We also spent a wonderful Thanksgiving at the beach.  Now it is December & our academics are winding down a bit.  We have learned so much & are enjoying celebrating the entire advent season.